AP credit for pre-med courses?

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Swiperfox

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This just dawned on me, but I used AP Chem to skip gen chem 1 and lab and go on to chem 2. I did take biochem, but biochem is also a requirement for some schools (particularly UF). Am I going to have to take physical chemistry or does my AP count?
 
Swiperfox said:
This just dawned on me, but I used AP Chem to skip gen chem 1 and lab and go on to chem 2. I did take biochem, but biochem is also a requirement for some schools (particularly UF). Am I going to have to take physical chemistry or does my AP count?
Click to expand...

It varies by school, but if you want to be safe, take Pchem.
 
Swiperfox said:
This just dawned on me, but I used AP Chem to skip gen chem 1 and lab and go on to chem 2. I did take biochem, but biochem is also a requirement for some schools (particularly UF). Am I going to have to take physical chemistry or does my AP count?
Click to expand...

I used the AP credit. As long as your school gave you credit (it is on your transcript), you should be OK. If you have a question, I would talk to people who make these decisions. They should be a mere phone call or e-mail away.
 
Swiperfox said:
This just dawned on me, but I used AP Chem to skip gen chem 1 and lab and go on to chem 2. I did take biochem, but biochem is also a requirement for some schools (particularly UF). Am I going to have to take physical chemistry or does my AP count?
Click to expand...

when i started at UF med in 2001, they were fine with my AP credit for gen chem 1 and 2 and bio 1 and 2. Don't know if things have changed since then, but if you are able to do well on the higher level courses in college, I'd imagine you would be ok.
 
Swiperfox said:
This just dawned on me, but I used AP Chem to skip gen chem 1 and lab and go on to chem 2. I did take biochem, but biochem is also a requirement for some schools (particularly UF). Am I going to have to take physical chemistry or does my AP count?
Click to expand...

you might consider inorganic instead of p-chem.
 
Avoid PChem at all costs...70 page lab reports, Schrödinger's equation, and the Fourier series (and this was just the second semester) are not fun 😡

If you can, take inorganic instead it's not bad at all 🙂
 
Ginkneephur said:
Avoid PChem at all costs...70 page lab reports, Schrödinger's equation, and the Fourier series (and this was just the second semester) are not fun 😡

If you can, take inorganic instead it's not bad at all 🙂
Click to expand...

Odd, Fourier series are good things in my book (I'm not too shabby with Fourier). However, 70 page lab reports are a definite no. I will look into inorganic chem and, once I figure out where I am applying, promptly shoot off a few inquiries. With any luck I won't have to deal with this.
 
what about if you took the CLEP for a premed class, do med schools also consider it the same as AP credit.
 
Would med schools care if you have AP credit, one way or another? Because if not, it would be smart to not use AP credits, and re-take the classes, to boost the GPA, wouldn't it? Of course, if med schools like to see that you have AP credits, this wouldn't be a smart option.
 
PreMedDocMD said:
Would med schools care if you have AP credit, one way or another? Because if not, it would be smart to not use AP credits, and re-take the classes, to boost the GPA, wouldn't it? Of course, if med schools like to see that you have AP credits, this wouldn't be a smart option.
Click to expand...

yes, but some medical schools will not accept AP credit received for prerequisite courses. They would suggest you use the AP credit and take advanced classes to meet the minimum hours requirements. Looking back, i'd take the AP credit in subjects where i'm going to have to take extra courses (or won't mind taking extra courses) anyway (chem, bio, math for me). But i wish i'd retaken the courses where I would not be doing extra work in that subject (PHYSICS!). The whole AP thing kept me from taking a stab at a few dream schools (Hopkins, UCLA), but overall it wasn't a big deal, and I couldn't be happier to go where i'm going.
 
PreMedDocMD said:
Would med schools care if you have AP credit, one way or another? Because if not, it would be smart to not use AP credits, and re-take the classes, to boost the GPA, wouldn't it? Of course, if med schools like to see that you have AP credits, this wouldn't be a smart option.
Click to expand...

I felt pretty good about my high school prep (IB) so i took all the credits I could get --- and ended up doing OK in Orgo and Biochem. It didn't end up being an issue when I matriculated at UF COM in 2001 that i didnt take chem or bio in college which i suspect is related to how i did in the upper level classes. At Ivy leagues, they are probably anal about where you take your classes.
 
if someone had AP credits for:

2 semesters of Chemistry, 2 for Physics, 1 for Biology, and 2 for calculus (on a top-quality university transcript), and used these for reqs at a school that claims to be ok with AP credits,

does anyone think this would this start raising eyebrows by an adcom?

if so, could this person be saved by a great MCAT?
 
CATallergy said:
if someone had AP credits for:

2 semesters of Chemistry, 2 for Physics, 1 for Biology, and 2 for calculus (on a top-quality university transcript), and used these for reqs at a school that claims to be ok with AP credits,

does anyone think this would this start raising eyebrows by an adcom?

if so, could this person be saved by a great MCAT?
Click to expand...

Well--- if you have a decent MCAT and you aced Organic, Biochem, and physics, I think you'd have a strong case (i.e. you can handle the advanced courses so why should they care about where you did your first-year stuff, at least that's how I played that angle)
 
medgator said:
Thats true, but the OP was wondering whether he would need "2 yrs" of some chemistry to get in, given that he is getting out of his basic Chem requirement through AP credits.
Click to expand...

The requirements are 1 full year General Chemistry, 1 full year Organic Chemistry (some also want 1 semester of BioChem), not 2 years of any type of Chemistry.

The only way AP's can be an issue, is that med schools look at your pre-req courses to determine how competitive you are. It's usually much harder to get an A in a course full of college-level pre-meds than to get a 4 or 5 on an AP exam against high school students.

However, since the OP only tested out of only one pre-req, it's probably not a problem if the grades in the rest of the pre-reqs are good (unless the med school has a particular policy on APs, in which case the OP would have to take general chemistry not P-chem).

Upper-level sciences factor into your science GPA. If you can take P-chem and do well that will look good. If you take it and get a C, that will not look good.
 
CATallergy said:
if someone had AP credits for:

2 semesters of Chemistry, 2 for Physics, 1 for Biology, and 2 for calculus (on a top-quality university transcript), and used these for reqs at a school that claims to be ok with AP credits,

does anyone think this would this start raising eyebrows by an adcom?

if so, could this person be saved by a great MCAT?
Click to expand...

nope. not at all. If they accept them, then they accept them, and they won't be viewed as a negative at al. It might help if you've taken at least 1 chem/bio/physics class for a grade, just to show that you can handle college level classes.

I had 2 credits for chem, 2 for physics, 2 for bio, 2 for calc, 2 for english and it wasn't a problem anywhere (though I took at least 1 graded class extra in each subject).

also, keep in mind that NO school will accept AP credits unless credit was awarded by the school that's granting you your degree and will show up on your transcript.
 
I APed out of both semesters of chem, took orgo and biochem (which makes up for only one semester). If schools accept the credits, you don't have to worry about substituting your AP courses with upper levels at a 1:1 ratio, but your application is more competitive when you show that you can also excel in science classes taken at your university.
 
lol, me and my friend both skipped taking AP credit for intro bio and just retook it at college. Turns out they used the same textbook as my AP class, so I ended up being able to slack off quite a bit :laugh: and still get an A- (yes, I know, I should have tried and gotten the A).

I honestly don't know what's with everyone going nuts with taking AP credits...I mean, if you've already taken all the intro classes in high school, repeating it is just going to mean you have a really crazy high science GPA for med school...

Whereas, taking credit for the intro classes might mean you end up in a higher level science class freshman year, and then you realize your high school AP course didn't actually prep you as well as the actual college course prepped the other students, plus you're a freshman who's still getting used to college, and you end up getting pummeled...

But I guess if you want to do things the hard way, lol.

Honestly, if I had to do it all over I'd probably have taken more AP's in high school (I only took AP Bio, AP Comp Sci, and AP US History, and I didn't bother to get credit for anything since I wasn't going to be a comp sci or history major, and I wanted to retake bio since honestly I was only a B student in my high school AP Bio class), ignored the credits and retaken the pre-med requirements in college and aced them. Then I'd have like a 3.8 science GPA, and probably like a 3.9 overall GPA (since my science GPA is what's actually dragging my overall down), and look like a champ instead of what I look like now lol.
 
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